L.A. Noise Proposal Spurs FAA to Weigh National Regulation : Airports: Control efforts by a number of groups across the country have sparked concern. Action by U.S. would preempt local rules.

Spurred by Los Angeles International Airport’s proposed regulations to reduce airport noise, the federal government is considering national standards in an effort to prevent a patchwork of local regulations.

Transportation Secretary Samuel K. Skinner said Monday that the Federal Aviation Administration has drafted a policy to limit airport noise across the country--a policy that could preempt Los Angeles’ plans. Skinner noted that the federal government has the power to block the proposal.

“It is pretty clear to me that the people in California and Los Angeles are just the latest in a series” of groups trying to regulate airport noise levels, Skinner said during a luncheon meeting with reporters. “We cannot allow airports across the country to adopt (noise standards) willy-nilly.”

The Los Angeles Airport Commission drafted an ordinance last May that would require the gradual phase-out of older, noisier aircraft.

In the meantime, the commission has ordered a freeze on the number of flights by older aircraft currently operating out of LAX and Ontario International Airport, which is also administered by the Department of Airports.

Donald Miller, deputy executive director of the Department of Airports, said the local ordinance stemmed from airport officials’ frustration with the lack of a federal policy.

“Airports around the country have been waiting for years for the federal government to develop noise standards,” he said.

The airport commission will proceed with public hearings on the proposed regulations, Miller said, but added that a federal move could preempt the Los Angeles action.

In 1976, the federal government issued an airport noise policy that forced airlines to retire the first generation of jet airliners, which were noisier than the second- and third-generation aircraft now in use. The policy also outlined the responsibilities of the federal government, airports and air carriers to further reduce noise, but did not include specific standards.

Skinner said he hoped to make a decision on the new federal proposals “in the not too distant future.”

Robert Marx, a Skinner spokesman, said he was concerned about the Los Angeles plans in part because they could impose hardships on cargo carriers, most of which fly at night. In addition, he said, if noise reduction standards develop piecemeal, they could interfere with interstate commerce.

Skinner told reporters that although he is “not going to issue a threat to Los Angeles, the federal government has the right to file lawsuits and withhold funds” to block the ordinance. But he said he hopes that his department will not have to resort to “a litigation strategy.”

Ken Quinn, a special assistant to Skinner, declared that his boss “is dead serious about ensuring that locally based noise restrictions do not interrupt the nation’s transportation system.” The FAA draft includes a “range of options” that would require “various levels of federal involvement” in reducing airport noise, he said.

The proposed Los Angeles regulation would force air carriers to restrict use of second-generation jets to 75% of their flights by Jan. 1, 1991--aircraft that include early Boeing 727s, 737s and 747s. Those aircraft could constitute only 50% of flights by 1994, and 25% by 1996.

By the year 2000, the ordinance requires that 100% of flights out of Los Angeles airports would be on quieter, third-generation aircraft, including Lockheed L-1011s, European Airbuses and newer models of Boeing-designed planes.

At Burbank Airport and John Wayne Airport in Orange County, noise levels are measured on different scales, and noise relief efforts take markedly different forms.

Skinner declined to discuss the content of the proposed federal regulations, but did not object to all of the provisions in the Los Angeles ordinance. For instance, he noted that many second-generation aircraft would be rotated out of operation by the year 2000 in the normal course of service.

Times Staff Writer Sam Fulwood III in Los Angeles contributed to this story.